Book Reviews From The Bookbag

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.

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Kingmaker: Divided Souls by Toby Clements

Historical Fiction

Thomas and Katherine Everingham and their son Rufus are enjoying a time of contentment working on Sir John Fakenham's Marton Hall estate. However, this peace is just the eye of the storm. Tragedy strikes the Fakenhams almost at the same time that the Plantagenet Wars of the Roses hots up again. Richard Earl of Warwick is challenging King Edward IV, leaving the Everinghams with a serious dilemma… or two. Full review...

Macavity's Not There!: A Lift-the-Flap Book by T S Eliot and Arthur Robins

For Sharing

Looking back, one of the first games I've played with every baby I've encountered is the one where you hide behind your hands and then appear surprised when you drop them and see the baby. It never fails to get a smile. (I know - it was probably wind...) Macavity has perfected the game, because - wherever you look - he's not there. Here at Bookbag Towers we loved the full version of T S Eliot's poem, but what about the very youngest children - the ones who really love the idea of someone - or something - not being where you expect them to be? Full review...

Blame by Simon Mayo

Teens

A small hand in hers. 'Is it our fault?' Abi said nothing. These tender words show the situation. Ant (a teenaged girl) and Mattie (her younger brother) are innocent and in a prison – HMP London, no less. Since the death of the EU and a huge, all-conquering recession, people are being imprisoned left, right and centre for the crimes of their parents and their parents in turn, meaning anyone with any slightly dodgy firm or habit in their family that might have taken money away from the common good is having their children imprisoned. And even though Ant and Mattie are legitimately in there, due to their parents' activities, they've since been adopted by people who have themselves been accused and imprisoned, thus making them real tabloid-fodder as the worst criminal family in Britain. Surely, then, there's no hope? Full review...

Pengelly's Daughter by Nicola Pryce

Historical Fiction

Rose Pengelly is only too aware that she is living in a man's world. Independent, strong and well-educated, she has dreams of running the family boatyard, but she knows that her dreams can never come true. A woman's job is to bear children and run the home; it is the way things have always been and the way that they always will be. Now, according to Rose's mother, it is particularly important that Rose secures a good marriage, as her father's poor business decisions have left the family bankrupt and on the verge of destitution. Wealthy timber merchant Mr Tregellas is only too happy to help the family out, in exchange for Rose's hand in marriage, but Rose despises him and suspects that he is responsible for the family's bad fortune. If only she can find evidence to implicate him, there may be a chance to escape from this seemingly hopeless situation. Full review...

Affections by Rodrigo Hasbun and Sophie Hughes (translator)

General Fiction

If you thought your teenaged years were a struggle to work out the world, and yourself, consider that of Heidi Ertl. Or either of her sisters – this book serves as a sort of tribute to these three real-life women, and the lives that came out of their very disjointed youth, forced to be rarefied from the norm by their family uprooting. Father Hans was one of Leni Riefenstahl's key cameramen, and a Nazi military photographer, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Bolivia. Their mother would have followed him to the ends of the earth – as in part would their daughters, the older two of which start the book by joining him on an expedition to discover a lost Incan city. Heidi finds young, instant love on the trek – but sees the dark side of such emotions, too. Older sister Monika, who might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while the baby of the family stays at home with a maudlin mother. So much here could be the hook on which to hang a full novel, but if anything it's the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires this book. Full review...

The Dog who Dared to Dream by Sun-mi Hwang

Literary Fiction

From the very beginning, Scraggly knows that she is different to her brothers and sisters. Her siblings have short, glossy coats, but Scraggly's blue/black fur is long, wild and untamed. She may be an outsider, but she still enjoys life with her family in Grandpa Screecher's sunny yard, even if it means putting up with the evil cat next door. Scraggly dreams that things can stay this way forever, but fate has other plans. One tragic night, everything she loves is cruelly ripped away from her. As she struggles to rebuild a new life and family for herself, she comes to understand that sadness, betrayal and loss are an inevitable part of life. Can Scraggly ever learn to trust another human again? Full review...

Where Monsters Lie by Polly Ho-Yen

Confident Readers

Effie lives with her mum and dad and baby sister Tommi in Mivtown - a tiny, straggling village on the edge of a loch. Every year, the villagers throw a parcel of food into the loch as an offering to appease the monsters living in it. Nobody really believes in it but the offering does serve as a warning to keep away from the water. But this year, strange and awful things happen. Effie's rabbit Buster gets out of his hutch even though Effie is sure that she locked it. Mum disappears without trace and even the police can't find her. And then there's the slug infestation. The nasty, slimy things are everywhere. Full review...

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz

Business and Finance

Negotiation is nothing more than communication with results, according to Chris Voss. Never Split the Difference is all about maximising the chances of these results being in your favour. Drawing upon years of experience as a crisis and kidnapping negotiator, Voss has developed a set of highly honed tools, field-tested in numerous high-stakes negotiation situations involving the FBI. In contrast to the widely accepted paradigm for negotiation taught in schools and universities, this toolkit throws aside complex game theory and dense mathematical considerations in favour of an approach that places emotional intelligence, empathy and subtle communication techniques at its core. The focus is on developing an understanding of the thought process of individuals during any given discussion. Effective communication not only helps derive these insights, but allows them to be used to move a negotiation in the direction you want it to go, while simultaneously resolving a discussion with minimal conflict. Full review...

Spangles McNasty and the Fish of Gold by Steve Webb

Confident Readers

Spangles McNasty is nasty to everyone and everything. There is only one thing that Spangles likes more than being nasty, and that's stealing spangly things: shiny, sparkly, glittery things. Things, for example, like goldfish. That's why Spangles McNasty and his friend, Sausage-face Pete, hatch a plan to steal every goldfish they can find. But they don't just want to steal the goldfish – they want to melt them down because Spangles thinks they're made of real gold. He thinks it's a quick way to get rich. Luckily local boy, Freddie Taylor, also wants a goldfish (his Mum says she will consider letting him have a dog if he can prove he can look after a goldfish) and he's determined to find the fishy thieves. Full review...

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Autobiography

Meet the Durrells, a quintessentially eccentric English Family. We have Larry, the lazy and pompous eldest; Leslie, who loves hunting and the outdoors; Margo, a sulky teenage girl at the mercy of her hormones; Mother, who seems unflappable, even in the most extreme situations; Roger the loyal family dog and finally Gerry, who is 10 years old and has an obsession with the natural world. “My Family and Other Animals” is Gerry's story of what happened when the family decided to uproot to escape the drab monotony of England for the sunnier climes of Corfu. Full review...

Help! I'm an Alien by Jo Franklin

Confident Readers

Daniel Kendall has nothing in common with his family. He knows he's different and his family nickname – Oddbod – only serves to reinforce this. He is, therefore, not surprised when his sister, Jessie, informs him that he's not really her brother. It's easy for Daniel to accept her assertion that he's really an alien, abandoned my alien parents and adopted by the Kendall family simply because they felt sorry for him. Suddenly Daniel understands why he is different and all he wants now is to return to his home planet. He enlists his two best friends, Freddo and Gordon, to help him. They have plenty of ideas but their plans are not always sensible or, indeed, safe. Full review...

Wave by Paul Dowswell

Dyslexia Friendly

Wave, set in WW1, tells the story of the battle of the Somme. Although the story spans 100 years, 1st July 1916 and 1st July 2016, the majority of the action takes place during 30minutes between 7am and 7.30am on 1st July 1916. It follows two brothers, Charlie and Eddie, as they prepare for the moment when they are to go over the top, as the first wave, into No Man’s Land. The story is a poignant, reflective and brutally honest account of the events which lead to the biggest casualty rate in one day in the history of the British Army. Full review...

Strange Star by Emma Carroll

Confident Readers

It is June 1816 at a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva and a group of friends are gathered together to tell ghost stories. There is one rule for the evening and that is that their stories must be a tale to freeze the blood. As the summer storm builds up outside there is a frantic knocking at the door and events take a more chilling turn than any of their stories. Full review...

Bodies of Water by V H Leslie

Paranormal

Bodies of Water is a concise novella featuring a dual narrative from the perspectives of Kirsten, a modern day woman on the mend from a broken heart, and Evelyn, a nineteenth century 'guest' of a water treatment centre for ailing women. Kirsten moves into the old Wakewater House, attempting to heal herself with the proximity of the water. Centuries ago, Evelyn was forced by her father to visit that same house in order to restore her old vigour, but the water cannot drown out the ghost that haunts her. In fact, the water itself is a powerful and supernatural force. As the water encroaches upon both of their lives, Kirsten and Evelyn search to unveil the mysteries of the house as well as the drenched dark-haired figure who appears before them. Full review...

Watching Edie by Camilla Way

Thrillers

Edie and Heather are two old friends who haven't kept in touch as they left their teenage years behind, but a chance encounter brings Heather back just when Edie most needs a friend. It's so welcome, this return, that she's happy to accept the coincidence and not think too hard about the events that may have brought the two girls back together. From long lost friend to established confidant, Heather seamlessly reintegrates herself into Edie's life, but are things as rosy as they seem, or does one of the girls have a big secret they're trying to forget? Full review...

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan

Paranormal

Stefano Ferraro is the head of Italian family-run mega business. From hotels to racing cars, the Ferraros seem to have their fingers in many pies, and not all of them are legal. Splashed across the gossip columns of every newspaper and magazine in America the 4 brothers and their sister are a group of gorgeous beings to be reckoned with. The family have a secret though; they are Shadow Riders. They have supernatural powers which allow them to travel, unseen, through the shadows; a power which they use to serve justice when the legal system fails, allowing them to protect their neighbourhood from the criminal underworld. Full review...

Beloved Old Age and What to Do About it: Margery Allingham's the Relay by Margery Allingham and Julia Jones

Home and Family

We remember Margery Allingham as a novelist from the golden age of crime, perhaps not as famous as Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers but certainly well regarded by those who appreciate good writing and excellent plotting. Her last completed book was not a novel but The Relay, a combined account of caring for three elderly relatives, (Em, Maud and Grace) between 1959 and 1961 and suggestions as to how other people might achieve a good old age for their relatives. Margery died in 1966 and The Relay was never published in the form in which it was written. Full review...

The Perfect Stranger by P J Kavanagh

Autobiography

The Perfect Stranger was originally published in 1966, this edition 50 years on hasn't lost any of its charm or appeal. Intended as a memorial, '...made out of bits and pieces lying around me, bits of myself, all I had to bring her. Or rather it's part of it', in the foreward added to the 1991 edition Kavanagh is appalled that his book should have been so widely categorised as an autobiography and states that if he had known that would happen he would have stopped writing at once. To me this attitude is an early indication to the personality and character of Kavanagh. His journey highlights how disaffected, withdrawn, and isolated he is from the world around him, with an arrogance and cynicism that goes beyond the petulance of his teenage years. Full review...

Alice Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll and Tony Ross

Confident Readers

I don't know, you wait for one classic and exceedingly odd book to come along regarding a nice, intelligent and welcomingly polite young girl in a fantasia land having the weirdest of adventures only to find it was a dream, and then lo and behold along comes another. This one, of course, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, as it used to be called, is the sequel, and while I've given away the ending, more or less, I haven't begun to define the wackiness on the pages, that make up the meat and bones of the book. If anything the skeleton is a journey across a surreal chess board, meeting real-sized counterparts for the pieces, and encountering people and animals with heads full of poetry. But that meat, madam, that meat… Full review...

Chains of Sand by Jemma Wayne

General Fiction

Chains of Sand is a great read about family, faith, survival, and love. It follows the story of two young men: Udi a veteran of the Israeli army who longs for a new future in London, and Daniel, a London banker unsatisfied with his life and yearning for something more. The story focuses on their desires to change their lives by moving to different worlds and how this impacts their relationships with friends and family. As the story unfolds, the two protagonists' histories are slowly uncovered and they both have to overcome the difficulties in their new lives in order to achieve their dreams. Meanwhile, the fate of star-crossed love between a Jewish girl and an Arabic man in Jerusalem a decade earlier intertwines with Daniel's life, complicating all that he thinks has become clear. Full review...

Sweet Pizza by G R Gemin

Confident Readers

Sweet Pizza is a beautifully rich story based in Bryn Mawr, a town in South Wales. This slow paced story is not action packed and electrifying but with its subtle approach provides much more than that. There is depth, layers and meaning interwoven throughout. The story is based around a failing high street where the recession has had a devastating impact upon the community. As the tale unfolds, the reader is enveloped and embraced into a Welsh-Italian family who are struggling to keep their café open. Joe Davis learns of his Italian heritage by hearing his family history through Nonno, his grandfather, and appreciates how the café is pivotal to their lives in more ways than he could ever have imagined. In a series of flashbacks from events of WW2 Joe knows that he must fight for his family and his community. Full review...

Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe

Teens

In a speculative near-future London, there's a new wonder drug to treat ADHD. Concentr8 is cheap and effective. So effective that the mayor has instituted a programme to identify children for early, preventative treatment. Almost every troublesome teen in London is taking it, often before they've actually become troublesome. But then an austerity drive sees the program cut abruptly. Riots break out, led by the unmedicated teens. Full review...

Soft in the Head by Marie-Sabine Roger

General Fiction

This novel will make you smile. It's a feel-good story, unusual in its premise and original. Germaine is a 45 year old man who is illiterate. He has a group of drinking friends who frequently make him the butt of their jokes, a mother who calls him a 'half-wit', amongst other things, and a girlfriend whom he appears afraid of committing to. Germain spends many afternoons in the park, counting pigeons and writing his name among the dead of the war memorial. It is here that he meets Margueritte, a tiny 85 year old woman who tells him she also counts the pigeons. Full review...

The Best Medicine by Christine Hamill

Confident Readers

Aspiring 12-year-old comedian Philip has plenty of complicated stuff going on in his life. There's the unrequited love of his life, The Goddess (also known as Lucy), who only seems to be aware of his existence during his most embarrassing moments. He's also somehow managed to end up as the unwilling poetry protégé of his English teacher. And worst of all, there's The Yeti, the dim-witted school bully determined to torment him to the ends of the earth (or the corridor, at least). Despite the troubles, Philip has always been able to rely on his best friend Ang, comedian Harry Hill, and good old mum, for company, inspiration and unconditional support, respectively. However, when his mum is diagnosed with cancer, Philip finds his life taking a turn into the uncharted. She has always been his rock, the ever-reliable presence in his life, the one who never fails to laugh at his jokes. Then, Ang starts acting weird, and on top of that, Harry Hill refuses to reply to Philip's fan mail. Keeping a sense of humour is tough when life seems to be intent on throwing an endless supply of lemons at you. Full review...

After Alice by Gregory Maguire

Fantasy

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, she found Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rule and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But how did Victorian Oxford react to Alice's departure? When Alice's friend Ada, mentioned briefly in Alice in Wonderland sets out to visit Alice, she arrives a minute too late. Tumbling down the rabbit hole herself, she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and bring her safely home from this surreal world below the world. Full review...

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Thrillers

The unnamed Girlfriend is driving with her boyfriend Jake to his parent's farmhouse out in the country. True to the title, she's thinking about ending their relationship. But something seems a little off. When she meets his parents, the Girlfriend begins to think there's something not quite right about them. On their way back they stop outside an abandoned school, and that's when things get really frightening... Full review...

The King's Justice by Stephen Donaldson

Fantasy

Through the forests and the driving rain rides Black, a man never more aptly named. He's approaching Settle's Crossways, although that is of no concern to him, for he is merely following the scent of evil. All purpose and little pause or scruple, he is on the trail of a killer, and Settle's Crossways, as luck would have it, is in need of the King's Justice. Black seems able to control people's thoughts and deeds (and go without paying his way) just by rubbing an arm under his permanently-worn black cape, but when he sounds out the parity in the town between the churches of light and dark, he knows what exists there may take him to a darker place than even the last wars regarding the balance between those elemental forces – and to a place where he really cannot take the control he's used to… Full review...

Do Not Wash This Bear by Sam Hay and Nick East

For Sharing

Dad is not very good at washing. There are those of us who would shrug this off and feel happy that at least he gives it a go, but then I guess after a while shrunken T-shirts and dyed vests become a little tiresome! Anyway, one day dad decides that Bear has become a little bit stinky and needs to go in the wash, and although the child in the story shows dad the very clear label stating Do not wash this bear he decides to ignore the advice and throws him into the machine. Washing Bear turns out to be a very big mistake, since some combination of the bubbles and the spin setting drastically alter poor Bear's personality, and when he comes out he is a very decidedly naughty and troublesome Bear! Full review...

Escape From Rome: The Roman Quests by Caroline Lawrence

Confident Readers

It is 94AD, and the Emperor Domitian is busy killing those he suspects of being disloyal to him. The accused are allowed no trial, no chance to prove their innocence: the soldiers simply come in the night and slaughter the whole family. Anyone who is civic-minded enough to denounce a 'traitor' gets half their property as a reward, so as you can imagine it is the richest people in Rome whose names are most often mentioned. Then comes the turn of Juba's family... Full review...